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Planning permission has been granted for a new solar farm just outside of Kinsale as Cork's renewables sector continues to grow.
The new farm will be located in the townland of Farangalway, just north of Kinsale, with the developers securing planning for a ten-year period.
Once up and running, the farm will be capable of producing a maximum export capacity of 6 MW, which will provide power for up to 2,000 homes in the area. The developers say that the project will reduce local reliance on imported fossil fuels.
The farm will occupy roughly 9 hectares of land in Farangalway, and developers secured permission for the construction of the solar array, a single-story transformer station, two energy storage units, a weather station, security fencing, CCTV and associated site works. Planning was granted by Cork County Council, subject to a number of conditions.
The application was approved in spite of several local objections. Residents raised concerns about the project's ecological impact, worries that it may worsen flooding in the area, and the farm's visual incongruity with the surrounding landscape.
Construction on the new farm is expected to begin in due course and it follows the refusal of one of the country's largest solar farms elsewhere in Cork over the summer.
In July, Cork County Council refused planning permission for six solar farm sites in the Lee Valley area with a total area of 161 hectares. The farm would have been capable of producing approximately 100MW, which would have made it the twelfth largest solar farm in Ireland, alongside another 100MW project in Galway.
Cork County Council refused the planning permission on the grounds that the developers did not demonstrate that sufficient archaeological investigations had been carried out to preserve any potential archaeological heritage. The council said that granting permission for the proposed development would 'set an undesirable precedent' and that the application contravened development plan objectives.
The development also saw significant opposition from concerned locals and community groups, with more than a hundred objections lodged against the proposed solar farm.